Writer, Blogger, Explorer of the Everyday

Tag: 30 Days of blogging

Join me in saying goodbye to National November Blog Posting Month. Like authors and writers are encouraged to do during National Novel Writing Month, I’ll wrap up the writing/blogging challenge by mining the data of the finished product.

1. Hong Kong 香港

HK was always on my list of places to visit but reading and reviewing Year of Fire Dragons really heightened that desire. When ZJ and I went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, we were hungry to squeeze in a day in HK, utimately deciding a day would not do the city justice. (We also would need to get a new visa as the tourist visa he received with his HK travel docs expired long ago.)

2. Hangzhou 杭州

Coined “Heaven on Earth,” Hangzhou is home to the West Lake 西湖, an inspiration of poets and painters since the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). The freshwater lake houses gardens, temples, a tea farm, a spring, tombs, and a museum, surrounded by cloud-laden hills. Bonus: Visiting Hangzhou might result in an encounter with Jocelyn 🙂

It’s a mixed bag of reactions whenever I declare I’m a yangxifu, foreign wife/bride, at least in the United States. As a possibly necessary disclaimer, I do not inform acquaintances merely by translating into English, but may mention my husband is Chinese.

Self-identifying as a 洋媳妇 in China would always illicit positive responses, especially from the taxi drivers who mistook my nationality, identifying me as Russian. Many saw nothing out of the ordinary in a Russian woman marrying into a Chinese family.

I mesmerize millennials and many, but not all, of my peers, when I disclose my husband’s nationality. They get caught up in “the trans-national romance,” many having been abroad understanding the subtle nuances of creating lasting bonds, perhaps not as lasting as mine.